Contacting Professors: MEXT FAQ (Embassy-Recommended)

Reaching out to a Japanese professor for the first time can be intimidating and confusing. Hopefully these questions and answers should make the process easier.

Embassy-Recommended MEXT Scholarship: Contacting Professors FAQ

For the Placement Preference Form, you are expected to list three universities and three professors that you want to study with. I’ve written before that you do not need professors’ permission to list them on this form, but I still get a lot of questions about it.

I’ve answered some of the most common questions below and will keep this page up to date with new questions, as well. If you want to know whenever there are updates to this (or any of the FAQs), I recommend that you join my MEXT Scholarship Mailing list.I’ll also send you a copy of my sample MEXT scholarship application forms.

Live Q&A?

Once TranSenz reaches $50 in monthly support on Patreon, I will start a monthly live video Q&A. If you are interested in supporting this effort, or simply getting faster responses to your questions and access to articles ahead of everyone else, you can become a patron of TranSenz for as little as $2 per month!

Here are the questions:

Where can I download the MEXT scholarship placement preference form?

When should I start contacting professors?

I recommend contacting them for networking purposes as early as possible, but I do not recommend mentioning the MEXT application or a letter of acceptance until you have established a bit of a relationship or you have passed the primary screening.

I can’t get in touch with a professor. Is it still OK to list him/her on the Placement Preference Form?

Yes. Once you pass the primary screening you’ll have to get in touch with the professor to request a letter of acceptance, but it’s OK to list them on the form in advance.

How should I contact professors?

The method varies by university, so you’ll have to check the university’s website. Look for scholarship-based admissions for international students (or if that fails, general admissions for international graduate students in your field). They should have instructions on how to contact professors for each university.

Some universities will give you the email addresses to contact professors directly. Others will direct you to go through and administrative office.

How should I write my emails?

I contacted a professor, but he never wrote back to me. Does that mean he’s not interested in my research? (Before passing primary screening)

Not necessarily. There are dozens of reasons why a professor might not respond. Chief among them: Professors are very busy and typically don’t spend much time on email. Replying to you, especially if they don’t know you, or especially if you’re asking for a Letter of Acceptance before passing the primary screening, is probably not that important to them.

It’s nothing personal, but most applicants don’t pass the primary screening, so professors don’t want to invest time before they know you’re a serious prospect.

You can list that professor on your MEXT placement preference form, anyway!

I contacted a professor to request a letter of acceptance, but he never wrote back to me. Does that mean he’s not interested in my research? (After passing primary screening)

Not necessarily. Check that university’s website and see if you are supposed to contact professors directly. Some universities want you to, others collect all Letter of Acceptance requests through a central office. Make sure you’re approaching your request correctly.

Is it OK to list an Associate Professor (or Assistance Professor) as a supervisor, or must it be a full professor?

It’s OK to list junior ranked professors, but you should check the following points:

Does the faculty member have at least the degree you are applying for? (Obviously, a faculty member with only a Master’s cannot supervise a PhD candidate)

Does the faculty member oversee his/her own research? (If the professor is a junior member of another professor’s lab, you should probably go after the senior member as a supervisor)

Is it OK to list an undergraduate professor as a potential supervisor?

You should try to find out if that professor is also associated with a graduate school at the university. If their main responsibility is teaching undergraduate but they also work with the graduate school, that should be fine!

Do you have questions about contacting professors that I haven’t answered above?

Ask them in the comments below and I will update this page as soon as possible. (Please keep in mind that it may take some time for me to catch up).

I’d also recommend signing up for my mailing list, below, to get notified whenever I have updates to any of the FAQs or new articles about the MEXT scholarship!

Hi Travis, first of all thank you for this great blog! It is very informative.

I intend to go for U to U and so far i have contacted 3 professors. The first prof i contacted told me to apply to other labs due to his being highly competitive to join. So i listened and contacted 2 more professors. One of these 2 professors responded so quick and he seems really interested in me. I didn’t expect the other one prof would respond to me because it had been 2 days and I hadn’t heard from him, then suddenly this professor also responded and asked me what my intended program is. I know neither of them had actually agreed to supervise me, but my question is what should i do if all of them end up agreeing to supervise me? I don’t want to be rude and cancel one of them. Thank you in advance for your reply!

Thank you very much for your kind words.
It is great to have professors agree to supervise you, but you should also be thinking about which lab is a better fit for your research and choosing based on your priorities. Professors should understand and respect that decision process. It is practically certain that one of the two labs would be a better fit for your research. I recommend that you be honest with both professors and tell them that you are very interested in working with them when you study at the university, but that you are still trying to determine what lab fits best with your research and so you are in contact with other professors at the same university to learn more, as well.

Hi Travis,
First of all, thank you very much for all the information you’ve put on this great blog, really saved me a couple of time!
I have passed the first screening and already contacted 4 universities, but only 3 of them replied back to me, and I still have not been able to obtain a single LoA. Is it OK if I contact 2 or 3 more universities (7-8 in total) to increase my chances of getting a LoA or should I just stick to 4? I’d appreciate it if you could reply as soon as possible since this year we have only until 24th of August to contact universities.

Did the three that replied tell you that they would process your application, or did they decline?
If they declined to offer you a Letter of Acceptance, I would recommend that you contact other universities immediately. If they are processing your application, then I would not recommend contacting replacement universities for those three.

For the university that did not reply, I would recommend sending a polite reminder email about a week later then, if that does not get you a reply, contacting an alternate choice.

Ultimately, you only need to secure at least one LoA at the end of the process, so having 4 applications in progress should leave you quite safe.

from the other 3, one of them declined me so I contacted an alternate university. the other 2, however, aren’t looking so good since the professors don’t seem interested in my project so far. The alternate one I contacted, Waseda U, told me they’ll send me the results in 3 weeks whether I get accepted or rejected, so not so good looking on Waseda’s side either and it’s not certain that I’ll get accepted and I can’t wait 3 weeks to see if I d0. I only have 2 weeks from now if we consider all the non-work days and a one-week summer vacation. That’s why I was thinking about contacting 3-4 more universities in order to raise my chances and hopefully get 1 or more LoA. What do you think I should do?

I’ve heard from other applicants in the past that Waseda says pretty much the same thing to everyone. They have also been notorious in the past for not contacting successful applicants by email with the results and only sending the Letter of Acceptance by post, which can leave you hanging. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still do that. It sounds like they have accepted your application, at least.

If you are fairly certain that the universities that haven’t shown much interest are going to decline your application and can identify 2-3 other universities where there are professors who would supervise your research topic, then it would not hurt to contact them, but I might recommend waiting until next week to give the first group a little more time to respond. At this point, you’re probably not going to be able to contact a third group of universities, anyway, so you don’t lose anything by waiting a little.

Hello Transenz,
Thank you for your good work. I have a question regarding contacting the professors. Actually I want to contact a professor at Kyoto university but the problem is that I couldn’t find his email address or contact number anywhere. I have contacted the graduate school already but they have only provided me with the professor’s contact address, not the email address or contact number. Now what should I do?? I have passed the first screening and there is deadline of submitting the LoA. I’m feeling really hopeless here!

Did you tell the admin office that you were a MEXT applicant and had passed the Primary Screening?

The Kyoto University website specifically says that you are to email your documents to the professor that you want to be your supervisor. I would suggest that you reply to Administrative Office and say that their website requires you to email the professor with your application materials (include the link). Ask politely if the administrative office would be willing to forward your email to the professor or if they can give you the professor’s email address directly, or other instructions as to how you should apply.

Hey Sristi!
I saw that you were selected for the MEXT 2019 Research Scholarship written test and interview at the Embassy of Japan, New Delhi. I was also selected from the Mechanical Engineering category and passed the First Screening.

I have formed a Facebook group for all the Indian candidates who passed the First Screening of the 2019 Embassy Recommended MEXT Scholarship.

If you have passed the First Screening as well and would like to join our group please do so. We have shared a lot of useful information in the group.

Hi Travis! Thank you for the encouragement. It is really tough to find those candidates who passed the first screening and ask them to be a part of a supportive network. Not everyone uses social media and there is a limit to how much and how far one can reach to search for them. I was hoping actually to ask you to post some sort of an announcement for those people who follow your posts regularly so that there may be a chance for those few Indian candidates who passed the First Screening to join our group.

I’d be happy to post something on my facebook page linking people to the group, but I’m afraid you’ll end up getting a lot of people who haven’t actually passed the primary screening yet and just want to join. As long as you’re OK with that. . .

The other thing I can do is send a message out asking if there are any other groups out there for successful MEXT Scholars (e.g. from other countries) and then put up an article here with links to those groups. I’ll add that to my next email.

I also remember seeing something similar in previous years on the jref forum. If you read that, you could add a post there, too.

Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz

Afraz Khan2018年12月22日

Thank you so much Travis!

You are right, at this moment I do not want those candidates as members who have either not passed the First Screening or haven’t applied altogether.

Thank you for telling me about the jref forum!

Aishwarya2018年5月29日

Hey Travis !!
I have an URGENT QUESTION
should I contact more than one professor from the same university(just for a backup )……. also since the one I have sent the mail to hasn’t replied yet.
and how long should one wait for a reply? (as I don’t wanna be rude)

It depends on the university, so I can’t give you a certain answer. If the Adjunct Professor is not able to supervise you, they should let you know.
You may want to have a back-up in place, just in case.

I would not recommend contacting multiple professors from the same university unless the first one replies and says that he or she is unable to supervise you because of a scheduling conflict, research field incompatibility, etc.
For sending a reminder, three business days is plenty of time to wait before sending a reminder, I think. If that does not work, you can try contacting the administrative office of the graduate school and asking for their assistance.

Hi Travis,
Thank you very much for all the information. There’s one thing I’m wondering about contacting professors.
Would the professors know how they’re ranked in my preference list in the end? If so, shall I let them know my preference upon first contact, so that they don’t get disappointed afterwards?
-Charlie

The professors would only know if the university makes you submit the Placement Preference Form when you apply for an LoA. As long as you have a good reason for your order, there should be no problem.
Ultimately, they also know that MEXT will choose what university from the list to try to place you in and your preference order may not be the deciding factor, anyway.

Hey Travis,
Thanks for all the informative posts. I have a question that might be a bit off-topic, but any help is appreciated. I want to contact a professor for networking purpose but have never done such a thing before. Could you give me some idea as to how I can go about it?
Thanks a lot
Bhabesh

Unfortunately, that’s a more in-depth topic than I can get into in a simple reply here. I wrote an article about how to contact universities/professors to apply for LoAs that might help, but networking is something I plan to cover in more detail in the future.
Put very briefly, be polite, be brief and to the point, and write a letter than invites a reply.

Thank you very much for providing everyone with such a helpful information. I’ve been getting so much help from this blog and your ebook.

After going through your explanations, I’ve become curious whether the professors on my preference list are going to know in the end whether he/she has been my first choice. If they do figure out that they have not been my first choice, I guess they would be somewhat disappointed and be a little awkward when I see them in a conference or a similar academic gathering afterwards, regardless of the scholarship result.

Would it be better to let the professor know whether he/she is my second/third preference? Or would it be better to leave my second/third preference empty, if my first choice professor was very supportive?

I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
The only way the professor would find out if they were your first choice or not would be if you were required to submit the Placement Preference Form to the university when you apply for a Letter of Acceptance. But even if they did, as long as you have a good reason for rank ordering them the way you did – such as prior knowledge of their work, better lab facilities, more appropriate to your research field, etc. – they should not get upset about it.
Certainly by the time you would meet them in Japan, they would have forgotten all about it.

If you already have contact with your first choice professor and are sure you can obtain a letter of acceptance there, then it should be fine to leave your second and third choices blank, but you will have to be prepared to defend that decision during your embassy interview. In the end, the most important thing will be what Letters of Acceptance you can obtain and turn in. If a professor/university is on your list when you first submit it to the embassy, but they later do not issue you a Letter of Acceptance, then that university would not be considered for your placement anyway.

Thanks so much for substantial information about scholarship. I had learned so much from your website luckily. I have one question that in placement preference application form is it possible to put difference professor from SAME university? My first choice prof is really super busy and i’m afraid that he wont notice my email. And i found my second professor while searching about my interested filed and found that he is from “A” university BUT the problem is that i cant find him in that “A” university website faculty. HOW should i put prof ?? Is it possible to change professor even after 1st application? Thanks in advance !

I would recommend that you only put one professor from each university on the Placement Preference Form. However, it is not a bad idea to have a backup professor as well, in case the first is not available. Usually, if your first choice professor is not available, the university will tell you to choose another.
If that happens, in every case I have heard of, the Embassy will let you change the entries on your Placement Preference Form, too. (In most cases that I have heard of, it is possible to change your entire list of universities later, if you have to).

I’m not sure about what to do with the professor that you can’t find on the university’s website. Maybe it is out of date. You could always contact the administrative office of the graduate school where the professor works to try to confirm.

Hi Travis, thank you for writing all these posts, you are really helpful to a lot of us.
I contacted one of the professors that I’m interested to, she gave me positive response but we have stopped contacting each other, mainly because I’m still not sure about my research proposal, and it’s not completed yet. What I want to know is that okay to ask professors about their view regarding my proposal? I’m very hesitant because I don’t want to be a hindrance , and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m clueless/helpless about this particular topic. At the same time I want to know her opinion about my research proposal…

Thank you for your kind words.
It depends on your relationship with the professor. If she was enthusiastic and supportive, then it should not be a problem to ask her view. But I would recommend that you don’t go to her with a completely rough draft.
I would suggest that you go over your research plan with a current professor or academic advisor at your university. They should at least be able to help you get it into basic shape. Then, when you contact the professor in Japan, you will not have to worry about seeming clueless!

Hello,
I wanted to thank you for your help, thank you!
Does the professor I want to contact have to be Japanese or is it enough for the professor to work in a Japanese university even if he is a foreigner?

Hi Travis,
My question was probably answered before (it was asked by Dina, I guess), but I wanted to know, is it ok to contact more than tree universities and actually get more than tree LOPA, and then chose only the tree we like the most, does it somehow reduce our chances of acceptance? Because after contacting some Universities two of them asked for the documents to issue the letter of acceptance, but yet told me to be aware that I might not get accepted, and due to the approximation of the deadline though I already got one letter I wanted to elevate my chances.

Yes, it’s OK to contact more than three universities. As you pointed out- there’s no guarantee that your top three choices will all accept you, and there usually isn’t enough time to contact a fourth university if you wait until the results of the first three.

If you have three professors that you have been in contact with from the start of your application and feel confident about, though, I would not recommend contacting more universities.

However, the deadline for contacting universities was August 31, so I think it’s too late for this year.

Hi Travis!
Your work is impressive and I am really thankful to you for providing such information. I have a question about next scholarship (university recommendation).
Applying for masters with mext schlorship in more than one university is not allowed( If I am not wrong). Let’s suppose I applied in a university with deadline in november and I got rejected and now I found another university offering mext scholarship with deadline in December. So now is it OK to apply there too?
Also, I need more guidance about university recommendation. Is it compulsory to contact professor before applying for admission in masters or post graduate degree?

You are correct that it is not allowed to apply to multiple universities in the same year through the University-recommended MEXT scholarship.
Even if the application deadline for one is November and the other is December, the results for both typically wouldn’t be released until late January, so I don’t think it’s ever going to be possible to apply to two universities.

As for whether or not you must contact a professor in advance, that depends on the university you want to apply to, so please check their website for their specific process. Of course it always helps to contact and network in advance, if you do it well!

In that case, I recommend contacting the administrative office of the professor’s graduate school. August is summer vacation and professors are often gone, but administrators still have to show up to work.

Hi transez. Thank you so much for all the valuable information.
I would like to ask you something. Is it possible to contact more than three universities and list the three we like the most? Thank you!

I have found myself in a slightly confused situation regarding MEXT and was wondering if you could clarify some issues for me. I applied through the Embassy Recommendation and was rejected at the first stage, so of course I still want to consider applying through the University Recommendation.

I have recently heard back from a friend of a friend, a woman who works in my field of interest in Japan, who I had contacted initially about suggestions for universities/professors to apply to. She did not get back to me in time before the application for the embassy was due but she has now. She has said that an acquaintance of hers, a professor at Waseda, “said he could accept you as his student”.

I have not contacted him yet but he works in the Graduate School of Education and the “Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences”. Neither of these are English-based programs, and I do not know Japanese very well (I definitely plan/want to learn but have not had the opportunity as of yet). This professor does speak English, however. He actually interned in his field in the community where I now attend university in the U.S.

What I am mostly wondering about is the fact that he has apparently agreed to accept me, but does not teach in an English-based graduate program, would I still be eligible applying to his program as a research student? And if I wanted to continue on to a masters degree with the MEXT scholarship, would I have to stay within the program that this professor teaches and he stay my advisor, or would I be able to transfer to a different English-based graduate program at Waseda for my degree? Additionally, I am not receiving my undergraduate degree in Education. I know that you are supposed to apply to a program related to your undergraduate degree – mine is Interdisciplinary Studies: International Studies focus – but much of my research and my field of study is focused on education in Japan, so would that present a problem or not?

Lastly, I have a professor at Hiroshima University who has also agreed to accept me as a research student should I apply. I’m guessing it would probably be more reasonable for me to apply there than Waseda anyway lol.

When Waseda releases their application guidelines for the University-recommended MEXT scholarship, it should include the language requirements. In general, a program that requires Japanese language for the degree is probably going to require it for research students as well, since the assumption is that research students will move up to become degree-seeking students.

However, I would recommend that you talk to the Waseda professor directly and ask him if your lack of Japanese ability would be a problem. Maybe he has a solution that I don’t know about.

You have to apply for a degree in a field of study that you majored in “or a related field.” So, if your major was International Studies but your research focus was education in Japan, then a degree in Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences seems to be a related field. I would not anticipate any problems there.

If the Hiroshima program is taught in English, that would seem to make more sense, but I would recommend you at least talk to the Waseda professor first.

Dear Travis,
I have relied on your information so far , thanks for that.
Having been interviewed last week, I’m waiting for the results. I know it might be a little late but I’m going to contact professors now. The PROBLEM is my choices being strictly limited because of not having good command of Japanese language and having no other way but going for English-teaching universities. As in my field of study (CIVIL LAW) there is only one university conducting master’s program completely in English, there are only 2-3 professors working on fields close to mine in that university and I don’t know if it’s OK to contact them one after another or not?
And Sorry for asking such a stupid QUESTION: What should I ask them in my emails? Asking for LoA by attaching my resume and showing my enthusiasm is enough?

At this point, there isn’t much point in contacting the professors/university until you have the results of the Primary Screening, since you’re so close!
I’d recommend that you read through the university’s website and look for their instructions as to how to apply for an LoA. They may want you to contact professors directly, or they may want you to go through an administrative office, first.

In either case, you are going to have to submit a copy of all of the documents you submitted to the embassy, plus the Passing Certificate of the Primary Screening. I recommend sending them all as one single pdf file, if at all possible.

In your email, I would recommend that you introduce yourself (name, country, MEXT applicant) and your research (past major, 1-sentence description of what you want to research in graduate school). Express your interest in the professor and say that you would be honored to study under him/her. Offer to provide more information if he or she needs it and thank him/her for her time.

I would only recommend contacting one professor in the university at a time. If that professor likes your work but isn’t able to supervise you personally, he or she may refer you to the others.

I probably should have planned this well in advance; I had entered my top 3 choices for labs in Japan on the placement form without having contacted them. I emailed my most preferred professor 2 weeks ago and he hasn’t replied yet. Thing is, that was only an innocent email with questions about his papers and research and had absolutely no mention of Mext or scholarships.

My interview is next week and while I’m confident about passing the interview itself, I’m worried about how I should go about contacting all the professors now. It would be awkward asking my no.1 for an LOA all of a sudden, given that he didn’t reply and that would then give the impression that I had ulterior motives when I sent my first email (even though they were genuine questions). I don’t know if I should just directly contact my no.2 and no.3 for LOAs directly either (this is a very small field so I’m sure the profs are all in touch with each other, and so if I mess up with one of them they’ll probably all know).

You’re in the same position as the majority of applicants at this point, I think, so don’t worry about being behind, especially if you still haven’t completed the primary screening.

The first thing I would recommend would be to review each of the universities’ websites and see how they want you to apply for an LoA. Some universities want you to contact professors directly, others have a central admin office that handles all of the applications. Make sure that you’re going about it the right way.

At this point, you can’t even ask anyone for an LoA, so don’t worry too much yet. However, since it’s been 2 weeks since your last email, it’s probably safe to say that if the professor hasn’t written back yet, he or she isn’t going to, so I think it’s OK to send a polite, professional reminder message. If you haven’t already, mention that you are very interested in pursuing your degree in Japan and are very interested in the professor’s research, so you would like to study with him/her.

Once you pass the primary screening, then you can let your professors know and ask for an LoA. It’s not an “ulterior motive.” Your ultimate motive is to get to know the professors so that you can apply to study with them in the future. The MEXT scholarship is just a tool to help you accomplish that.

I did check with the universities; my no.1 and no.2 want me to email the professor directly, while the no.3 requires me to contact their ‘Division of International affairs’. I think I will send another email asking about some other things I had to ask and also breach the subject of wanting to work with him. However I think I might only contact the other two professors if (and when) I pass the primary screening.

I had another (probably silly) question if you don’t mind. In your experience, is it more common for professors to reject a formal request for an LOA by replying with a rejection email, or by ignoring the request?

That sounds like a good approach.
At my university, the international office handled all of the applications and all communication with applicants. Essentially, that was my job for three years.
We responded to every application and sent out rejection letters if we were not able to accept a student, but I can’t say that every university is the same, especially those where you contact professors directly.

If they haven’t replied, I would not give up. If you’ve sent one or two reminders and still can’t get a reply, then contact the administrative office of the graduate school where the professor works and ask for their help in getting in touch. That way, you can at least ensure that the professor got your message.

Just wanted to give an update on the situation. I had previously told you how my first choice professor hadn’t replied when I’d sent him an email asking questions before I’d passed the primary screening. Well, after a 3 week long an d somewhat gruelling, email exchange, he has agreed to send a LoPA. It seems mentioning that I’d passed mext primary screening did indeed make them notice my email haha.

I might have another problem though. You see, my second and third choice profs haven’t replied yet. And the one who did was from Kyoto U. I’ve read that since places like Tokyo U and Kyoto U get a lot of mext applicants there is a chance that there may not be a spot for me (and normally this would lead to me getting my 2nd choice). So if I do not end up not getting any more LoAs, should I be worried that I might be dropped?

As far as I know, so long as you receive at least one LoA, you should not be at risk of “being dropped.”
If you want, you could reach out to other schools as well as a backup. I’d recommend that you check with your embassy first, though. Some will allow you to change the list in your Placement Preference Form based on the LoAs you receive.

Good Luck!
– Travis from TranSenz

Mish2017年8月21日

Hi

It wouldn’t let me reply to your latest message so I’m just going to reply to this one again.

I just wanted to say thank you so much on behalf of all of us, for maintaining this website and sharing your knowledge with us. Not just that, but for also promptly replying to all the messages you get. You have been of immense help.

Mish

vikram2017年7月12日

Hi Travis,

Thanks for the valuable information.

Will interview panel question me if I didn’t have unofficial acceptance from potential supervisor?

It’s not necessary, and in many cases not possible. Some universities won’t help you get in contact with professors until after the primary screening.
But it helps to have unofficial acceptance, if possible. You should certainly at least have made an effort before you go into the interview.

Please a quick one. What if I write a Professors name and I pass the Primary stage, is it possible to change the Name of the Lecturer maybe because he said he could not supervise me or some other reasons. Basically am asking that if I write a lecturers name and am not able to get him can I still change after I pass the primary test.

Yes, you can, in most cases.
In most cases, I have heard that the embassy will let you change your placement preference form after you get your LOAs.
You might want to double-check with them first, though.

Hello, thanks for your blog! I have a question regarding the acceptance letter, should i submit only after I pass the first screening or with the primary application? Since the embassy told me its better if I submit it with the rest of the documents which didn’t make sense

You cannot even apply to universities for a Letter of Acceptance until after you pass the primary screening. I don’t know what your Embassy meant, but they either don’t understand how the process works or misspoke.

First and foremost, I wanted to thank you for this wonderful blog! I stumbled upon the 2018 MEXT Scholarship application just a couple weeks ago. As I have been planning on applying to graduate school for Fall 2018, this opportunity was too good to pass up and I have been working feverishly to get all my materials together. This site has been a HUGE help and I feel fairly confident with my embassy’s deadline soon approaching. I was nervous about not having the opportunity to contact and secure a potential supervisor yet, but recently discovered that my schools prefer that applicants wait until after the primary screening.
Questions:
1.) After passing the initial screening and requesting a Letter of Acceptance, what happens if a professor that you listed is not interested in supervising you? Can you seek another professor at the same university? Or do you have to cross that university from your list?
2.) Are there any statistics that show how much lower the odds are for applicants to get into a private university versus a public university?

Thank you for your kind words! I’m sorry it ended up taking me so long to get back to you!
1). In most cases I’ve heard of, the embassy will allow you to change the schools on your placement preference form, but I’d recommend that you double-check with them after passing the primary screening, just to be sure.
(By the way, if you haven’t started contacting universities for Letters of Acceptance yet, I am putting the finishing touches on a new guide for that. It will be out tomorrow, so check back then or, if you’re on my mailing list, you’ll get a direct link sent to you, too.)
2) I recall hearing that approximately 1/3 of MEXT embassy scholars end up in private universities, but I don’t have a source for that. Based on my experience, private universities are equally willing to accept students, it’s just a matter of MEXT giving preference to national universities in placement and there really not being as many top-level private universities as there are national ones!

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